Galway gears up for feast of trad music

Date Published: 12-Jun-2008

Galway is gearing itself up for a busy festival season over the next few months between two oyster festivals, the Galway Races and the Galway Arts Festival. One festival which has been putting the City of the Tribes on the map over the last six years are the Galway Sessions, which are the brainchild of local publican and well known musician Mick Crehan.

A festival dedicated to celebrating traditional Irish music, the Galway Sessions do exactly what they say on the tin; they comprise of eighty sessions played by one hundred and eighty musicians over eight nights in Galway pubs, thus promoting Galway and Irish music. But although it is a Galway event, you could argue that its development dates back to 1908 to County Clare.

“I come from the County of Clare. The Crehan family would be one of the most noted families of traditional music in Ireland, it goes back five generations,” explains Mick Crehan. “One of my most famous ancestors would be Junior Crehan, who was mostly a fiddle player. He was born in
1908 and died in 1998. When he started playing he would have played with musicians from the previous century so he was regarded as the great white haired father of traditional music,” continues
Mick, explaining that Junior was one of the founders of the Willie Clancy Summer School in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, the biggest and most successful traditional music summer schools in Ireland,
taking place on the first week of July every year.

“When they started in 1973 they had…